What foreign sounds are you proud to have mastered? Which ones are you having difficulty with?
I learned how to make a Japanese R/L sound. It took me longer, but I also learned how to make a French R sound. Weird sounds in French, like the sound U makes, aren't bad for me.
Most of what is hard for me are Rs. I've been trying to get a Russian or even Spanish R, and I just haven't been able to make those sounds. I also can't make the German or Scottish ACH sound. That one would probably just take more practice, though.
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Anonymous2012-09-23 15:53
As a Hungarian, foreign sounds really are easy-peasy to learn.
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Anonymous2012-09-23 16:10
I'm not sure if I am proud to have 'mastered' certain phonemes, however some of the more dificult ones include Arabic phonology, Russian, Mandarin, and Danish.
Spanish, French and German came easy to me, however I couldn't say why.
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Anonymous2012-09-25 10:46
I've never had any trouble with any sound. I'm not sure why this is, or why in every language class I always encounter people who are unable to get their mouths around every sound by the end of the first semester. The Japanese r and ts, the Chinese ch, sh, zh, q, j, x, h, c, and z, the Greek ch, x, and ps, the French r, the Korean aspirations and glotallizations, and the Arabic h have all come to me very easily.
And my mother language is American English, though of course that means I've had to mouth a lot of sounds just to speak my own language.
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Anonymous2012-09-25 11:27
>>2
Can you pronounce "th" as in "teeth"? Or how about "th" in "these/those/they/them"?
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Anonymous2012-09-25 13:11
>>5
Different poster here. American English is my mother language, but not only can I not easily pronounce any of the th sounds, I cannot "hear" them either. I usually hear them as "f" in words like teeth, and "d" in words like they. I also hear it as "v" in weather/feather.
I believe it may have something to do with having Russian parents.
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Anonymous2012-09-25 20:30
>>6
At least one British dialect does that, as illustrated by Lauren Cooper's signature line "I (still) ain't bovvered".
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Anonymous2012-10-10 15:40
It took my quite awhile to be able to pronounce the Chinese r correctly.
Yeah, that's in London and the Home Counties amongst the youth and working class people. Like, thought and fort become homophones and obviously 'th' in father, mother and bothered morphing into 'v'. However, the 'th' in the, they, them is still retained. I have this accent.